


Storm Clouds over Rhalgr's Reach

by Panda_Valentine



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 11:19:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12107598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panda_Valentine/pseuds/Panda_Valentine
Summary: A continuance of the PWP series started in Clouds Below, Stars Above. Third in the series.Strong spoilers for Stormblood and minor spoilers for Heavensward, the story does presume you've finished the Main Story Quest and takes place shortly after unlocking the aetherial rift but before confronting Omega.





	Storm Clouds over Rhalgr's Reach

An overwhelming feeling of something being amiss woke him suddenly, not long after midnight.

Cid Garlond blinked in the dark, struggling to place what had woken him. A heavy rainstorm punctuated by booming rolling thunder drowned out all other noise in the Ala Mhigan style tent.

Lyse' resistance had been generous enough to share their supplies and the makeshift camp Garlond Ironworks had set up afforded privacy from the general inhabitants of Rhalgr’s Reach.  
The crew certainly appreciated the warm, dry climate of Gyr Abania to the constant cold and wet of Ishgard and the Dravanian Forelands.

The rain and thunder shouldn't have woken him, though. He had grown up sleeping to the sounds of noisy Magitek. A little weather didn't bother him.

The sound of canvas flapping against canvas caught his attention. Someone was opening the 3 layers of flaps that created the clever sand and waterproof entrance to the tent

Cid's hand went to the blade he kept beneath his pillow, instantly suspecting Nero of traitorous intentions. 

Their earlier argument had not been resolved, only interrupted by Wedge's quick thinking in summoning the Scions of the Seventh Dawn in the form of Dainty McSmasherson.

Cid wouldn't put past Nero for an ilm to make an attempt on any of their lives, especially with the end goal of controlling a power like Omega. Cid could have killed Jessie for putting them in this situation but the girl had always been a little socially inept. Great with Magitek, not so great with understanding human nature.

Thankfully it was not the silhouette of a fellow Garlean in the tent threshold that night. The figure was entirely too slender and a good foot shorter than most.

The tell tale cranial projections could belong to only one person.

The achingly appropriately named Dainty.

She had used the cover of the storm to slip, unnoticed, from her own sleeping quarters on the far other side of the Reach with the rest of Lyse’ resistance and it showed. She was sopping wet from top of her head to the tip of her tail.

When she saw him sitting up in bed to greet her she held a finger to her lips for his silence.  
Cid owned to being a little surprised at her appearance, reaching for the lamp on the bedside table. The sides of the tent were many layers of thick weather proof canvas, he had no fear of their silhouette being cast onto the sides, or any sharp eyes picking that there were two bodies in a tent that should contain only one.

The weak yellow light washed over Dainty as she struggled out of her wet war-leathers, her movements a little jerky, and unsteady. It was hard to see her face in the dark but her eyes were slightly downcast and framed behind thick, dark lashes. Her hair, dyed a pretty shade of pale lotus pink was wet from her trip across the Reach and clung to her face and neck.

The Au'Ra Maurader had been dragged into the middle of his and Nero's argument over Omega with her usual deadpan, stoicism.

Somewhere deep in his subconscious, where he would refuse to acknowledge it, Cid was actually a little hurt that she'd looked at both him and Nero with the same ghost-of-annoyance expression, as if she considered them each equally obnoxious.

It was and only when there was a suggestion that she might get to hit something repeatedly with her axe had she perked up considerably.

There was also the point that the Au'Ra had not sought him out in almost a year. Her duties to the Scions, and Eorzea taking her far away across the Ruby Sea.

He had almost passed her a message through Alphinaud; "Don't die, you're too bloody useful." but the thought had left his mind quickly, more pressing things to concern himself with.

He watched her calmly, undressing to her small clothes and moving to the edge of his bed, resting just one knee on it before finally raising her purple and orange eyes to his face, hesitating to make sure she was welcome there.

Cid raised a hand in greeting and in an instant she made a soft noise and flung herself against him convulsively. Cid started in surprise, almost being knocked onto his back and finding himself possessed of an armful of clinging, limpet like Dainty.

His arms came around her, holding her tightly against him, complying with her unspoken request. Her fingers rasped lightly into the skin at his back, desperately pulling herself tighter against him and tucking her face into the curve of his neck and shoulder.

Cid suddenly wasn't entirely sure the moisture on her cheeks was entirely from the rain. 

"What the matter, Dainty?" Cid asked softly, so their voices would not be heard above the rain.

“I just keep seeing that stupid hologram go through you.” Dainty murmured against his skin, her voice both a snarl and threatening to break. Something suspiciously wet looking glimmered in her purple and orange eyes before she blinked it away. “Rhalgr preserve me, not you too.”

Her voice did break this time and she clung to him.

The list of names of those she had lost was too long already.  
Minfilia, Moenbryda, Haurchefant, Papalymo, Gosetsu.

She didn’t want to think about adding Cid Garlond to the list too but her traitorous brain wouldn’t let her think of anything else.

"I'm fine Dainty, I'm fine." Cid soothed, stroking her soft, damp hair. It was shorter than usual, falling to just past her shoulders, rather than all the way to her ribs.

Cid cradled the Au'Ra against him, just listening to the pounding rain and rolling thunder in the low light.  
He was perfectly healthy but he didn’t begrudge Dainty her emotions or that she had chosen to share them with him. He forgot how small the Auri Maurader was sometimes, between her giant axe and sheer force of will it was easy to think her taller. 

Even with the top of her head level with his chin her toes only just reached his ankles as she sat on 1 hip between his splayed legs, clinging to him.

It was not the body of a child, though, not like a Lalafell. Dainty was all muscle and pleasantly female curves, despite her diminutive size.

Once upon a time he would have been at a loss by this seemingly uncharacteristic affection from the Au’Ra altogether. He remembered vividly his intense confusion the first time she had hugged him.

He wasn't sure what had seized his brain up more. The first time she hugged him or the first time he saw her in her small clothes. Cid suspected he was alone in that knowledge that Dainty was secretly a snuggler. Everyone else believing the cold hearted Raen more likely to seek comfort swinging her axe than in the arms of a Garlean.

The memory made him chuckle a little and Dainty sighed, raising her head and looking up at him with her utterly unique eyes. Dark magenta purple, with candlelight orange limbal rings. She’d never be able to disguise herself, her eyes would give her away every time.

“What's so funny?” Dainty whispered so faintly he almost didn’t hear it over the pouring rain. 

"Turns out you've got a heart in there after all, hmm, lass?" Cid teased, placing a large hand over her heartbeat. His comment and use of the playfully disliked term of affection coaxed a small smile from Dainty.

"Lies." she retorted the effect only slightly ruined by a tiny, adorable sniffle.

Of all the things they called her, Eikon Slayer, Hydaelyn's Chosen, steel-eyed Warrior and terrifying no one had ever accused her of being warm, or kind.

She reveled in her reputation of being very good at slaughtering things and worrying about nothing more than where her next adventure was coming from.

She raised a hand, tenderly smoothing some sleep messy white hair out of his blue eyes, uncovering the third eye that marked him indelibly as a pure blooded Garlean. The goggles and chain he wore as a rule had been discarded onto the beside table for sleep. Dainty kissed his cheek impulsively above the white hair of his beard, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath her lips.

Her heartbeat jumped in her chest, as if she suddenly snapped back to reality and realized where she was. Her arms around Cid's naked torso, wearing nothing but her small clothes and he was undoubtedly naked beneath the bedsheets that were falling low around his hips.

She hadn't come there to go to bed with him, she honestly hadn't but at that moment she needed him in the worst way.

"We could both be dead tomorrow..." Dainty whispered suggestively, a mischievous smile curling her full lips."...confronting Omega in its own lair."

"We dare not risk do aught else." Cid agreed. Her mouth, lips softly pouted, was tortuously close to his own. All the reason he shouldn't kiss her filtered through his mind.

Their proximity to others, the fact that the heavy rains that concealed their voices could stop at any moment, her unsteady emotional state.

She kissed him first.

Cid shifting his weight so that he could lay back and draw Dainty with him, settling onto their sides so that her tail would not be crushed beneath them.

Cid kissed her, tongue stroking hers until she softened into his embrace, body becoming pliant against his, letting Cid hitch one of her legs over his hip, fingers digging into the flesh of her thigh slightly. In the close confines of the bed it allowed him to press himself into the apex at the top of her thighs.

Dainty broke the kiss to look away, her eyes hidden by heavy black lashes. It was hard to tell in the dim lighting but he got the distinct impression she was embarrassed.

“Cid... I…” Dainty squirmed uncomfortably before admitting in a whisper “….you may have to gag me.”

For a stoic, self controlled, reserved Raen Au'Ra she was paradoxically almost completely unable to refrain from being vocal in bed with him.

“That’s a Hell of a compliment, Dainty. That ain’t something to be embarrassed about.” he reassured her with a soft chuckle.

She bit her lip before smiling darkly and kissing him again.

The Twelve only knew how much Cid loved the way Dainty kissed him. Tongue meeting his, sipping on his lips, arms wrapped around him tightly and hands running through his hair. She kissed him like nothing in this world or next was more important at that instant, not even breathing.

Her mouth left his to stroke hotly down his neck, finding his pulse and sucking on it teasingly. 

When he groaned softly she pressed her advantage, moving to straddle him. Dainty's hands roamed, palms sliding over Cid’s skin, admiring his muscular male form. 

“The Gods did it right the day they made you.” She murmured, tasting his collarbones, lightly dragging her fingernails down his ribs, just enough to tickle and tease. His hands found her hips, pulling her lower body against his and grinding his groin into hers, cock swelling further still at the attention and praise.

“I would say the same about you.” Cid’s voice was ragged with arousal as she circled her hips, rubbing her cunt along his length through their small clothes. She was a very pretty Auri and beautifully made.

His hands glided over her skin, finding every cluster of scales in the dark, thumbs teasing cluster above her tail before trickling up her spine and making her breath quicken with desire.

They found the fabric hem of the simple hempen camisole she wore, pulling it up, over her head and baring her breasts to the night. One of his arms came around her tenderly, his other hand finding one pink nipple and pinching it.

“oh..!” Dainty breath caught, a gasp escaping her reflexively. Cid caught her mouth in another ravenous kiss as his fingertips swirled on her nipples, pinching and sending a little shock of pain through her. 

He was unafraid of being a touch rough with the Eikon Slayer, his Garlean strength not anywhere close to that granted to her by the blessing of Light. She had also requested it, the last time he had found himself in this position with her and Cid was nothing if not a quick learner. 

Cid’s mouth left hers and she arched in his arms, her head falling back as his mouth found her hard, pebbled nipples, soothing the sting of his fingers with his tongue.

She could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears even over the thunder and rain.

Dainty bit her lip, it was getting increasingly difficult not to moan aloud at his ministrations. His beard tickled her skin, making her writhe, and move harder against his dick.

The heat from her core was a siren song that Cid couldn’t resist, dislodging her only so that he could divest them of their remaining clothes. When his thick erection sprang free from the fabric confines Dainty smiled darkly, licking her lips wantonly. 

He was tempted to let her do as she pleased but he had wanted to be inside her the moment she had suggested that he gag her. 

The moment passed in a heartbeat before she was straddling him again, his cock pressing up against her heated core eagerly.

Dainty lifted her hips, positioning him at her entrance. Cid's hands bracketed her hips, guiding her down onto him. The tip of his hard dick touched her outer folds, coating him with the wet slick heat of her arousal and slowly engulfing his length. Dainty pressed her face into Cid’s shoulder, shuddering as he speared deeply into her.

“Gods...” Her breathless exhalation was almost entirely silent, her whispers muffled against his shoulder. “...Cid!"

He could feel her inner muscles clenching his cock, every nerve ending screaming for him to grab her backside with both hands and slam himself into her. But he refrained, respectfully waiting for her body to adjust to sheathing him.

Dainty rocked her hips, letting his cock slide partially out of her grasping cunt before penetrating her fully again, aided by gravity.

The sensation of bottom out inside her every time she raised and lowered her tight body on him was indescribable. The slight pause and rolling of her hips before she lifted herself again, the gasped breath against his shoulder with every stroke sending lightning bolts of sensation through him.

With Dainty quite pleasurably in charge of rhythm and speed, riding him expertly Cid could turn his attention to equally an important task.

Keeping her quiet.

She had suggested that he might have to gag her. She never specified with what.

One hand coaxed her chin up so that he could kiss her deeply.

His hands cupped her face, similar to how she usually touched him. Cid's thumbs resting on her cheekbones and fingers curling behind the cranial projections into the soft strands of her hair.

She was so full of him, impaled on his hard cock to the hilt over and over, sucking on his tongue. Her hands felt like they had no strength as she braced them against his pectoral muscles. She wanted to throw her head back and cry out but she couldn't.

She was almost restrained, but at the same time... not.

Cid wouldn't let her catch her breath, or scream, or stop kissing him but at the same time she was completely in control of fucking him.

The sensation was powerfully erotic.

She could, of course, break free any time she would damned to all Seven Hells if she wanted to.

Dainty's body throbbed with need, hips moving on their own, body shaking hard and twitching as she rocked herself up and down his thick length. Lifting herself almost all the way to the head before slamming back down.

She was so close to cumming, he could feel it, rolling her hips faster and riding his cock, working his hard shaft with her tight cunt. The warm wet walls stroking and milking his dick and her breasts bouncing with each buck of her slender body.

Cid wasn't sure he could hold out, the sensation was just too incredibly intense, even trying to distracting himself keeping her silent it was impossible not to lose control when fucking Dainty.

Her orgasm hit her with all the subtly of a Primal manifestation, body snapping into an almost impossible arch, tearing herself from his grip and throwing her head back as a massive bolt of blue white lightning split the sky above Rhalgr's Reach with a ear splitting crack.

To her credit, her shuddering, shaking scream was entirely silent and Cid was treated to an image of her, naked and straddled across his lap, body locked up in ecstasy overload. His hands found her hips to hold her convulsing body still, drilling up into her as her inner muscles spasmed around his cock.

A few snaps of his hips was all it took for him to reach his own peak, growling her name almost ferally as he came hard, emptying himself inside her.

A roll of thunder followed the lightning as Dainty collapsed against Cid. She rested her cheek against his shoulder, burying her face in his neck and trembling in his arms as aftershocks rippled through her.  
His hands still clenched her hips, keeping her locked to him by instinct alone. The world had gone black then white and exquisitely numb for them both.

Neither able to speak, or move for several long minutes, sweat slicked bodies pressed together as the skies were again illuminated by intense lightning and shaken by thunder. The rain, heavy and drowning covered their panted breaths in the darkly lit tent.

Slowly, carefully Cid withdrew from Dainty's orgasm tight body, groaning softly as he did. She gasped in reply. She was so over sensitive it was almost painful.

"You re right, you're fine." Dainty quipped, breathless raising her head to shoot him a rakish smile.

"I don't know, I am suddenly dizzy. Perhaps you should check on me again tomorrow night." Cid shot back, a ribald grin of his own.

She giggled, leaning in for a long kiss.

They flopped down onto the bed together, Dainty flicking her tail between her legs and sandwiching the pointed tip with her knees so that it was pulled as flush against her backside as possible, allowing her to snuggle as close.

She sighed, satisfied and replete as his larger body curled around her smaller one, one arm beneath her neck to bend up and resting a hand on her collar bones, the other draping along the length of her body to recline on a hip.

He kissed the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her, and himself, mixed together in the bedsheets.  
If there was a better smell that sex, and sweat, and Dainty, he didn't know it.

She would figure out how to get back to her tent without anyone noticing her in the morning, right now not even a direct decree from Rhalgr himself would move her, curled up sweetly with her favorite Garlean.

* * * *

Daylight woke them far sooner than either would have liked. They lay exactly where they had fallen, both so deeply asleep neither had even twitched.

"Do you have to go?" Cid suggested, reluctance to release her from his embrace clear in his tone. He certainly didn't want her to go but they both knew the consequences of anyone catching wind of what they did behind closed doors.

The Empire would be only too delighted to find out that they could revenge themselves on Eorzea's protector, she who slayed their crown prince Zenos and resisted Garlean rule at every turn by torturing the traitor himself, Cid Garlond.

The lives of the Garlond Ironworks crew would be instant forfeit. There was no telling what the Empire would do to them to get to Cid, and to Cid to get to Dainty.

Dainty hesitated, body tensing, then relaxed back against him with a soft sigh.

"It will be fine. If anyone sees me leave your tent I will simply say we were discussing tactics should Nuisance tol Stupid play a traitorous hand."

It took Cid a moment to realize she was referencing Nero, and laughed aloud despite himself.

"Nuisance tol Stupid.... nice, Dainty. I'll remember that next time he gets mouthy."

"He ever stops being mouthy?"


End file.
